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There is a little known fact that American children are made of glass.

It’s true; they’re such delicate little snowflakes that the mere thought of them near danger results in the country childproofing everything!

“Think of the children!”

I’d rather not; you can get arrested for that shit.

Nothing demonstrates this more than the roads outside schools. There are big signs indicating a ‘School Zone’ with yellow lights that, when flashing, indicate you must slow down to the speed limit shown on the sign.

The Police are VERY vigilant of this I’ve been told. After all, “Think of the children!”

These speed limits vary from 25 mph all the way down to ‘Get out of your car and push it‘, and start about 30 miles outside the ‘School Zone’. “Think of the children!”

At face value this is a great idea, but I have never EVER seen an unsupervised child cross the street outside a school. This isn’t The Goonies. In fact, I’ve never even SEEN a child outside a school when the lights are flashing.

Ever.

Oh, wait, that’s not true. I have seen kids outside when the school kicks out.

Hundreds of little miracles, hands firmly held by their parents or being loaded into cages. At these times there are Lollipop men/women (crossing guards) walking out into the street, slowing and stopping the traffic. These people make the flashing signs redundant.

Take a look at this..

This is a Google street view of the school I actually attended as a 7 year old boy in England, with a school I go past regularly here in Vegas (and the inspiration for this post).

Anyone for Frogger?

Back in my day (insert Yorkshire accent here) you left school and crossed the street between parked cars by looking both ways before doing so. It was called ‘common sense’, or ‘not wanting to be splattered by an oncoming car’. The speed limit was (and still is) 30 mph. It’s slow enough to stop if a child runs out, and fast enough to speed up if a child runs out. We like choices.

But in America we have to drive 15 mph in case, god forbid, an unattended child should run out of the school, across the vast car park (parking lot), past the planters and shrubs and onto the wide open road that has no parked cars obstructing them from view.

Seriously, I could be doing 70 mph and see these little angels coming.

In this mollycoddling nation of snowflakes and participation trophies, the little lambs are never let out of the sight of their parents who usher them from the school building to their oversized SUVs like a celebrity leaving a nightclub.

So why do we all have to slow down from a measly 35 mph to an awkward kiddy-fiddling kerb crawl? I get nervous when I have to drive by a school slowly, especially with only one hand on the wheel.

10 to 2.

Eyes straight.

But seriously, where is that healthy respect for traffic we all had growing up? What happened to looking both ways when crossing the road? Where is the Green Cross Code?

People need to ‘Stop‘, ‘Look‘ and ‘Listen‘.

Instead they ‘Don’t Stop‘, ‘Don’t Look‘ and ‘Sue‘.

In every country in the world, pedestrians need to watch out for oncoming traffic…but in America, traffic has to watch out for oncoming pedestrians. It’s ridiculous! I know I’ve touched on this before, but it baffles me how backward this is.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big advocate for road safety…..but not as much as I am for natural selection.

Following on from Part 1, here is the second category in why the cinema experience isn’t that great.

2. The People

I can tolerate the extortionate prices of the food and over-iced drinks. I can even tolerate the uncomfortably stained and sticky seats. It’s the people I have issues with. I could write shitloads about the people, but there’s only a finite amount of storage on the internet so I’ll break it down into categories.

Talkers

Why are you talking through the film? You’ve chosen and paid money to watch this film, so sit down, shut up and fucking watch it. Are you so incapable of not spewing utter bollocks for 2 measly hours of the day? If you can’t shut up, get out.

I have to go out on a limb here and include children and babies in this section. I realise it’s not their fault as they have yet to adopt social cinema etiquette, but come on! If your baby is screaming and crying, take them outside.

They’re clearly not happy being in a dark noisy room surrounded by strangers. After all, I’m not.

Take them outside. What are you doing in the cinema with a baby anyway? Either leave them with a sitter/friend/stranger or catch the film in a few months on Netflix. It’s not fair on the baby and it’s not fair on me, er, I mean us.

As far as kids are concerned, have a word with them beforehand about not talking or at the very least gag your little treasures.

I’m joking of course, but there is a degree of responsibility here on the parents. When the child is asking “Daddy, what’s Shrek doing? Daddy? Daddy? Why is Shrek shouting at Donkey, Daddy? Daddy? DADDY? DADDY!?”, maybe consider quietly answering them, followed by a discreet “Shh, watch the film” rather than just ignoring them.

You might be able to tolerate their incessant babbling and running up and down the rows, but we can’t.

Kick my chair again you little bastard, I dare you.

Texters/Facebook fiends

I hate this above everything. Get off your phone! If you’re doing it behind me, that’s ok (unless you haven’t muted the beeping/clicking sounds when you type), but anywhere else means I get a bright light in my face which can be as distracting as a punch in yours.

What is so important that you absolutely MUST send a message to someone or check your news feed RIGHT NOW? Then, when they’ve missed massive chunks of the film, they become a ‘talker’ and have to ask their friend what they’ve missed.

If I were the friend I would lie about it.

And punch them in the dick.

Or the vagina.

(I don’t want to appear sexist).

Loud eaters

Admittedly the cinema is somewhat responsible for a majority of this, but not entirely.

Firstly it seems ALL food packaging in the cinema is required to exceed the decibel level of a jet engine. It’s like bubble wrap being driven over slowly with a steamroller that launches fireworks and ball bearings out of its exhaust pipe, in a room with a lot of echo, during an earthquake.

Secondly it seems that most people wait for a really quiet moment in the film to rummage shoulder deep into their popcorn, taking ages to grab a fistful to stuff in their stupid fat mouths.

RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE!!!!

CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

SLUUUUURRRRP!!!

RUSTLE RUSTLE RUSTLE!!!!

CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

Can someone get this prick a nosebag?

Or me a gun?

Seat etiquette

Don’t kick the back of my chair, or any chair in my row that’s bolted to mine.

Even if you’re gently tapping the back of the seat without realising it, don’t think I won’t gently tap your face with my fist without you realising it too.

Also, if you choose to sit with a space either side of you, don’t act like the victim and get all reluctant and huffy when my wife and I ask you to move over. Do you seriously expect us to share popcorn across you?

We’re still going to hold hands.

And kiss.

That’s happening.

Last In, First Out

What are you doing turning up 20 minutes into the film?

Considering there’s usually half an hour of adverts and trailers/previews, that’s pretty fucking late to be strolling in. Did you forget what time the film was on? Was it a last minute decision?

And now that you’re here, please feel free to take a further 20 minutes to decide where you want to sit, preferably half way up the aisle so you can block the view of those who WERE on time.

Sit.

The fuck.

Down.

Oh, you need me to get up so you can get past my legs? Of course mate, no problem; I wasn’t doing anything anyway. No, no, it didn’t hurt when you trod on my foot. It’s fine; adds to the whole experience.

Then, when the film ends and the director’s name appears on the screen, most people are up out of their seats and already halfway to the exit.

This makes sense if the film was truly over, but with some films there are extra scenes during the credits. However, the people who have already started leaving still continue to leave!

Like this:

This morning at Victoria tube station there seemed to be a bottleneck forming at the top of the escalator. This is usually due to some penis who either has a massive suitcase with no understanding of how to steer it, or an inability to successfully step onto a moving staircase without counting in their head.

One, two, (step forward)

(Falls over)

But not this morning. No, this morning it was a woman with a pushchair.

I won’t lie, my initial thoughts were…

“Get the fuck out of the way you twat! We’re all trying to get to work! I mean who the fuck brings a child onto the underground at rush hour you massive wanker!?”

…but I soon realised that might be a little insensitive, so I didn’t say anything.

This poor struggling mother clearly had to travel at rush hour, otherwise why would she? And it couldn’t have been easy pushing a small child around; navigating the escalators and trains with hoards of busy and ‘incredibly tolerant’ commuters rushing past her like a torrid river around a stupid fat rock.

She finally managed to count to three and merged with the moving staircase; shuffling to the right (and quite rightly so), to allow other commuters to walk past her on the left. As I approached her I could see she was hunched over uncomfortably; desperately holding the pushchair and two massive bags in position as the escalator took us deeper into the bowels of London.

I felt for her, I really did. Poor cow.

I suddenly felt a wave of guilt come over me as I got closer to her. Who was I to judge her for holding us all up? Who the fuck was I to get impatient because she had a pushchair with a small child in it?

Hang on…hold the fucking phone…

As I got level with her I noticed the ‘small child’ was in fact a boy of at least four years old! He was certainly too old and too tall to be pushed around by his mother. I mean this literally of course; a lot of men are mentally pushed around by their mothers all their lives, or until the cyanide takes effect.

What the fuck is she doing pushing him around? Lazy little shit. I did wonder for a second if he was disabled, but he was using his perfectly healthy legs to turn around and talk to mummy; presumably to feed her a lump of sugar or whatever it is you give to a good horse.

Who’s a good horse? Who’s a good horse?

It pisses me off that this little prick was being shuttled around when he had two perfectly good legs, just like the little two year old girl STOOD on the escalator with her dad a few feet in front.

It makes me so angry that some parents pander to their children a little too much at times. We spend the first year or so encouraging them to walk, so let the fuckers walk.

In India, as soon as children have competent motor skills they start making trainers, presumably for English kids who don’t walk in them.

That’s the sound of ME running for the train like a deranged donkey; bag and brolly flailing in my wake as I slalom shuffling commuters like a survivor in a zombie apocalypse. I think I took out some kid with my bag, but its hard to tell…I mean this blood and snot could’ve come from anywhere, right? Right?? And whose tooth is this?

Anyway…

Why am I so late? Well let me tell you.

I drove to the station this morning in the realisation that my monthly travel card had expired and I needed another one. At least, I was hoping the police would believe that when I have to explain how I achieved the 13 minute drive in 7.

But that aside…

I then power minced from the car to the station. I can’t call it a power walk, because it was that kind of walk that’s a little faster than a power walk; it’s almost a run, but not. It’s what the professional walkers do. Hmm, maybe I’ll rewrite this paragraph.

I walked to the station like a toned Olympic athlete, and prided myself on getting there super early so I had time to get my ticket.

Queue.

Massive queue.

Shit.

So I took my place at the back of this miserable and unmoving conga line. And as I’m stood there among the zombies, I could hear the requests from the shufflers at the front who had made it to the coveted ticket window. Amongst the genuine requests for tickets, I also heard this little gem; “Can I have a ticket for tomorrow please?”

What?? Are you effing KIDDING me?? You’re not even travelling today?

There was also this little delight; “How much is it to Croydon?”. Normal enough, except this penis wasn’t even buying a ticket…he just wanted to know the price!

Of course, none of this was done in stasis; the clock was still ticking and it was getting incredibly close to my train pulling in. One woman in front of me must’ve been in the same situation as she kept huffing, puffing and sighing heavily whilst constantly looking at her watch.

Reminds me of sex with my ex.

So I finally make it to the sacred fenestrated wall and I’m done in under 20 seconds. People behind me are clapping and cheering; one woman is crying; someone gives me their baby to kiss. It was emotional.

Ok, that didn’t actually happen, but we all thought it.

I turn on my heel and bolt for the platform barrier, which is where I began this tale.

I literally run all the way up the slope, onto the platform, straight onto the train (as the door closes right behind me) and into a seat. What a great feeling; made even better by seeing a woman do the same behind me, but she was too late; stopped by Mr Jobsworth on the platform.

I’m not great at lip reading, but I think she just said “you can’t! You’re far, king sheet and can’t!” Dunno what that means.

Her snot nosed kid didn’t look impressed. It might be because he had a nose bleed, and he seemed to be missing a tooth.